iMPACT Celebrates One Year!
By Minh Tran
Motivating Pacific Islanders and Asians to Come Together, now simply iMPACT (in the spirit of the agency’s forward movement towards a more inclusive cadre of services), is celebrating its first year anniversary November 2, 2011 at VLVT Lounge in downtown Santa Ana, marking a great first year of APAIT Health Center Orange County’s social support group for gay/bi/curious men. The group’s journey this past year, and my own journey as the group’s head coordinator/facilitator, can be described as epitomizing and synchronistic to the history as well as future direction of our Orange County’s programs and services.
What started as an incarnation of Turn Table has taken a life and direction of its own since the very launch mixer at Metro Q Bar and Grill, October of last year. Seventy people came to the kick-off mixer, adding to the night a fun, vibrant, and promising start to OC Unit’s newest (and now, most well-known) program. Richie Nguyen, founder of the group and now Program Manager for the office, was successful in adopting the soul of what Turn Table was, while adding an electric new approach to magnetize a wide range of gay/bi/curious men of Orange County through an intensive outreach campaign leading up to the launch via social medias, networks, college fairs, and word of mouth to build an anticipation and excitement for the group. I was there as a volunteer and soon-to-be staff, at the time, and witnessed what I knew would be a privilege as well as a challenge to take over from Richie.
Most groups are held in the multi-purpose/community space room at APAIT OC’s office in Garden Grove. After inheriting the responsibility to plan events and facilitate discussion topics for the group, I ran into the very good problem of realizing that the space is not big enough to hold the amount of members coming to the group. iMPACT meets the 1st and 3rd Wednesday night of the month and alternates between social events and community discussion forums, and in either setting, the space always feels a little tight. Different solutions to this good problem has been tossed around, but ultimately, the team and I realize we want to have group at the office and that it’s all in how we arrange the room and utilize the space to its maximum capacity.
Some of the things iMPACT has seen its first year are game nights, karaoke nights, discussions on sexual health, gay stereotypes, romantic relationships in the “gay world” and the” Downe scene,” a very successful talent show, and so much more! Like Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team, now APAIT Health Center, Motivating Pacific Islanders and Asians to Come Together, now iMPACT, has always had an Asian flavor to it which distinguishes the group from other queer social support groups in the Orange County area. However, with the forward movement towards an even more inclusiveness of other races in our services, iMPACT seamlessly transitions in a synchronistic fashion to the agency as right from the start, there were non-API members who continued to come to group while knowing its more Eastern “flavor,” in fact, even appreciating it for being so.
While preparing for the one year anniversary celebration of iMPACT, which will be held on November 2nd of 2011 at VLVT Lounge in downtown Santa Ana, I realize how full circle it’s gone, with volunteers now leading the group so I can shift some focus onto other programs that APAIT Health Center Orange County has started up since a year ago. Once again, this marks a synchronistic embodiment to the growth and expansion of the agency, the OC Unit, my personal evolution in the field, and the ever-evolving gay social support group legacy that is iMPACT.